I've wondered about Rodin's famous sculpture. Is he engaged in deep thought or sitting around wasting time? And why isn't he wearing pants? I ask the same of myself. Here we comment on well, mostly politics. Or we may just sit! If you like it, tell a friend. If not, tell us, but please read the GROUND RULES before you do.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

THE REPULSIVE MARK HALPERIN, has been variously described in this blog as a pig, a worm, a plant, a vampire, a sacred cow, and lastly because his mischaracterized "swagger" is so incongruous and idiotic, as Romney's poodle, which seems somehow the most fitting appelation. It's not really Animal Farm. It's more like a ZOO, the Beltway ZOO, of which he is a principal changeling denizen.

Halperin specializes in rolling self-described "naïve" progressives like Lady Alex, and even seasoned politicos like Chris Matthews with what is to me so obvious and transparent Romney propaganda as to seem incredible they couldn't pick up the signals. They're getting better at it, but it's a drip-drip series of dim bulb moments. Maybe it's the Beltway culture permeating the D.C.-NY corridor, which tends to dull honest journalistic senses and distort (or be blissfully unconscious of) harsh outside-the-Beltway realities. After all, Romney plant Halperin is MSNBC's vaunted "senior" political "analyst," a meaningless designation conferred even on Michael "laying-of-hands" Steele who will always be a Republican political HACK, with unusual ... um, apolitical talents.

As an example of the Beltway Media's standards and practices, or should I say, (double) standards and practices, take Halperin's slap-on-the-wrist by MSNBC versus the network's adjunct Beltway publication, POLITICO's dismissal of its White House reporter, Joe Williams — with the control in this little human petri dish experiment the wingnut rag Daily Caller's Halperin-like hero, Neil Munro, whose unprecedented disrespect of President Obama earned him instant celebrity in Rightwingville.

By contrast, POLITICO's white editor-in-chief fired one of its few black correspondents, Joe Williams, for speaking the truth about Mitt Romney being "uncomfortable" around black folks; and for certain tasteless tweets that hardly rose to the level of calling the President of the United States a "dick." The Daily Caller got their scalp. That's their MO. They are the only so-called "media" group in the business of electronic spying on the private e-mails and the twitter feeds of journalists like Williams, or teenage murder victims like Trayvon Martin. Perhaps, it's time some "Anonymous" group or t'other went on a little fishing expedition of their own in Rightwingville. I'm just saying.

Funny thing, the cowards who fired Williams are all white boys. How very Beltway. And of course, the white Daily Caller editor who said on national TV that Michael Vick, the black quarterback convicted of cruelty to animals for running a dog fighting ring, should "be executed," got his black scalp. Naturally, he said his white boy Neil Munro, who disrespected President Obama in the White House Rose Garden, deserved "a raise."

But we digress. The thing is, once decoded, there is literally nothing to the deceitful dog with the twisted grin behind the curtain. Yet he carries the potential to spread lies and sophistic "analysis" to an awful lot of viewers. This time, however, Mark Halperin wasn't given free rein to spread his Romney propaganda. He tried, but FAILed. It's useful in a way to trot Halperin out, assuming his colleagues have been given fair warning, because there's always something to learn from his bullshit.

Here's my Halperin takeaway of the day: The Romney plant speaks in sound bites. Most "journalists" like to get more analytical, but this dude makes false, eminently arguable statements in authoritative declarative fashion, as if they're unassailable. For the viewer, the dude comes across as some sort of oracle whose declarations are not to be disputed. Indeed?! Unfortunately for the Mitt surrogate, his opening propaganda was greeted with skeptical disdain by the two liberal sharpies Ezra Klein and Chris Hayes flanking Lady Alex. Oops. Watch the Chris Hayes-Ezra Klein takedown of Romney's poodle. (Once he feels obligated to "explain ... things I said" he's pretty much toast, or fritura as we say south of the Rio Grande.):

In his parting shot, Romney's poodle turns up the heat on his access-rewarding Romney propaganda: "Will other Democrats, besides Nancy Pelosi, want to be out there defending the Act, talking about it as an historic and great achievement that's not appreciated enough by the American people, and finally, will the President put his hundreds of millions of dollars out there to defend the Act ..." Don't you just love it how this RAT (yep, one more changeling animal) invokes the name of the Republicans' and, according to polls of independents, the #1 BOOGIEWOMAN of the Democratic Party, Nancy Pelosi?! Dear Lady Alex, do you really think this bottom-feeder (yep, a microbial organism) mentioned Nancy Pelosi — TO THE EXCLUSION OF THE DOZENS OF PROMINENT DEMOCRATS WHO HAVE COME FORTH TO SING THE PRAISES OF THE ACA, INCLUDING THE FORMER PA GOVERNOR SEATED TO YOUR RIGHT — by ACCIDENT?!

Judging by your dismissive reply with a touch of sarcasm — "I think the answer to many of those questions is YES; but we'll find out" — I think not. Indeed.

Friday, June 29, 2012

"DEMS CURSE LIKE SAILORS" reads one whiny headline. (HAHAHAHA!) Wingnuts are typical bullies and cowards. If you can't take adversity, right wing asswipes, run back to mommy and daddy. Crybabies. Here's a sampling of the WINGNUT CRAZY — more to come:

Don't despair DCers; here's President Obama rubbing it in ... OOPS:"CLEANUP ON THE FAR RIGHT AISLE!" (Those POP-POP-POPPING SOUNDS ARE WINGNUT HEADS EXPLODING!?)

WATCH CHRIS MATTHEWS DEMOLISH Mitt Romney in this extended forum with Lady Alex, as he ticks off the ways Mitt has "sold his soul" to the Right. It's one of the BEST distillations of Mitt Romney, the captive candidate of extremist interests in the Republican Party, as you'll see anywhere. It comes up around the 4:00 mark. Also like that Lady Alex appropriated one of my favorite lines: "navel gazers"...

1. OUR ENLIGHTENED neighbors to the North, with SINGLE-PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE may consider an I.Q. TEST for Americans moving to Canada. Or, in the alternate, an electrified fence:

2. CNN and FOX pull a Munro, literally can't wait till Roberts concludes his remarks, and crap in their panties as the Chief Justice goes, this shoe is unconstitutional, but WAIT ... I haven't dropped the other, CONSTITUTIONAL shoe yet!
OOPSIE-FOXIE-CNN-DAISY: “Embarrassing.” “Fucking humiliating.” “Shameful.” A veteran producer jumps the gun, a young correspondent goes too far, and the network's crisis deepens."

FOX, OTOH, is TOTALLY OKAY with disseminating falsehoods: FOX News did not issue an apology. In a statement, Michael Clemente, a Fox executive, said flatly, “Fox reported the facts as they came in.” FOX brainfart:

"Ohio Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) -- or 'Mean Jean' as she is referred to by many Democrats, due to her infamous angry tirades on the House floor -- found herself caught in the preliminary confusion over the Supreme Court's ruling on health care reform. [...]"Yes! Yes!!! And what else?! Thank God!" Schmidt shouts into her cell phone, under the belief that the Supreme Court had struck down the law. Schmidt's phone source was apparently tuned in to either Fox News or CNN, as the two networks led initial confusion over the ruling by reporting that the high court had struck down Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act."

YOU HOSTED A MOMENTOUS SUPREME COURT BREAKING NEWS HEAVYWEIGHT PANEL, amid all the interruptions, from candidate statements to facetime by the usual suspects, WITH PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE, despite that WHEW at the end, before handing it off to Andrea. Don't sweat the small stuff; what's most important is that you guided the LIVE/ANALYSIS part of MSNBC's coverage in a "landmark day" (your words) in modern American history. No one can take that away from you: CONGRATULATIONS!

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, WRITING MAJORITY DECISION, upholds law based NOT ON COMMERCE CLAUSE but on Congress's TAXING AUTHORITY. This is so awesome, it's the beginning of the end of RIGHT WING CRAZY in this country and a return to Constitutional normality, and the principle of separation of powers coupled with RESPECT for the GOVERNING AUTHORITY of the Party that WINS.

I didn't want to jinx it here, but my reading of the tea leaves, as it were, led me to be hopeful the law would be upheld based on the perplexing (for opposite reasons) signals from two Justices: Antonin Scalia, the Court's right wing paragon; and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the Court's four center-left liberals. Keep in mind, they were part of the handful of people who knew of the decision in advance. Scalia threw a hissy fit from the bench on the Arizona decision, which also went against him, unlike anything seen from him before. (You gotta ask, as I did, why is this dude going off on an unprecedented rant if he's not going to be hammered, AGAIN, by the same Chief Justice?) And Justice Ginsburg very coyly, and humorously, noted at a forum she attended some weeks back that “Those who know don’t talk. And those who talk don’t know,” correctly predicting (NOT, she was in the know) a “sharp disagreement among the justices.”

This is a HUGE, HUGE WIN for President Obama, and FOR ALL OF US, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Memo To Destructive Anti-Tax Ideologue Grover Norquist: You're FINISHED. The Supreme Court has just upheld GOVERNMENT'S CONSTITUTIONAL IMPERATIVE TO TAX, TO RAISE REVENUES IN ORDER TO GOVERN, AN AUTHORITY THAT IS ENSHRINED IN THE CONSTITUTION. You can't get Justices or judges to sign your STUPID, DESTRUCTIVE, UNCONSTITUTIONAL pledge. The Constitutional principle of taxation has just been upheld by the land's highest Court.

THE i-PAD CAN HELP. Here's rapper will.i.am performing at the 'Isle of MTV Malta Special' concert in Floriana, Malta on Tuesday, wearing headgear made up of three i-Pads. He wasn't far from where the Hydra used to hang out until she joined the Euro Zone.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

THURSDAY, JUNE 28, IS ONE OF THOSE HISTORIC DATES that is prospectively enshrined in the annals of American History. Unless the Supreme Court rules to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, any other decision will cause a crossover political firestorm — because, however the radical right wing majority rules, there will be massive social and economic consequences that will spill over beyond the Beltway into the life and fabric of the nation.

Over on Capitol Hill, the "Fast and Spurious" charade, as the Huffington Post headlined it, and/or the second coming of Joe McCarthy (on steroids, added Jonathan Alter who isn't given to hyperbole), Darrell Issa is pushing his NRA-hatched conspiracy against our first African American Attorney General culminating in a contempt of Congress vote. The NRA is also holding a pre-determined vote for contempt like the Sword of Damocles over the heads of some cowardly Democrats. Yet, when all is said and done this travesty will be judged by history as a crass political and innately racist act. And so I hope it will not be dignified by the Congressional Black Caucus with their presence for the vote. They're mulling a walkout. And they should.

Ironically, the truth about 'Fast And Furious' came out today with the publication of a six-month investigation by Fortune Magazine. The story reveals that "the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust." This is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the truth. Here's Big Eddie with Jonathan Alter and Bob Schrum:

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE PICS BELOW? (TRICK QUESTION.) Aside from the mustache-less Michael Steele, which makes him look less like a Jamaican 'businessman' and more like a REPUBLICAN [Fill in The Blank], with the "infamous" Steele TOUCH.

Michael, this isn't the first time you get touchy-feely with Lady Alex on national TV. It looks creepy, pal. Don't you know to respect boundaries? Oh, I forgot, you're a REPUBLICAN. "Youse guys" (to quote Steele) don't have the best REP around women. Memo To Lady Alex: If you must have the windbag on your show, suggest you place someone who looks suitably unhinged like, say, THE SINISTER GLENN THRUSH, between yourself and the GROPEMEISTER. I'm just sayin'.

Caption Contest: 'Grope-A-Dope' ... 'M-Paw' ... "Sorry, I was reaching for the mug and missed; guess I need new specs."

Monday, June 25, 2012

IN A WEIRD JOINT APPEARANCE by Game Change co-authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann on NOW, Mark Halperin plied his exceedingly sharp propaganda skills on behalf of his candidate, Mitt Romney, while erstwhile partner John Heilemann, who retains some remnants of a conscience and scruples, pushed back at every turn. (One wonders whether their strange partnership is still in vogue, considering they don't agree on much, or if a divorce is in the works?)

Lady Alex, for her part, was strangely muted, and totally ceded the journalism territory — you know, little things like the facts and the truth — to Halperin, who in the rogue's psychology, admitted in a previous appearance to being a sophist, amid nervous snickers, conceding this truth about himself, as a joke naturally, to blunt it. Alex is much too smart not to know this dude is a Romney plant — don't take my word; it's kind of like finding distant planets by studying the effect of their orbits on celestial bodies in their vicinity.

Just listen to what Halperin says with a professional political observer's ear, then gauge the effect of his words in planting doubt in the audience for the purpose of peeling off some of those votes Romney needs. Free advertising/propaganda/damage control; all of that. Also, more importantly, shifting the terms of the debate on MSNBC forums toward Romney-friendly territory. For that he makes certain unchallenged statements as if they're facts with Alex's silent acquiescence.

And if that's not enough, I've given readers of this blog chapter-and-verse of Halperin's pro-Romney propaganda. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise. Where was Lady Alex, the sharp journalist and political observer, today? Then Alex oddly qualified this editorial snippet from the New York Times editorial of June 23, on billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson:

“One man cannot spend enough to ensure the election of an unpopular candidate, as Mr. Gingrich’s collapse showed, but he can buy enough ads to help push a candidate over the top in a close race like this year’s … For such a man, at a time when there are no legal or moral limits to the purchase of influence, spending tens of millions is a pittance to elect Republicans who promise to keep his billions intact.”

Alex should know, considering the source, that Chris Matthews never qualifies a quote from the New York Times for his audience. He has too much respect for us. We know the Times is not only the world's greatest newspaper but hardly an ideological outlier as Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, whose sole claim to respectability now is its name. Why then did Alex qualify the editorial as if it were some obscure blog entry, with this: "A strongly worded statement from the Times, not surprising, given their position on Super Pacs."

Excuse me, but this implies that there is an alternate "position" on Super Pacs that is equally as valid. This is like qualifying an editorial in Nature affirming Evolution to the member of the Flat Earth Intelligent Design Society sitting beside you (Mark Halperin), hence conferring equal weight to their argument. The repulsive smugness of the man regarding Koch Brothers money — "they have enough money that they don't have to choose, they can spend it anywhere" — literally buying the White House and Congress for the Republicans left this viewer aghast. Where's the moral outrage?

Adding injury to insult, Halperin comfortably pontificates on campaign finance reform. There's plenty here to "unpack" as Alex would say, in reverse order, as it were:

"Campaign finance reform is like immigration reform; it takes two things to even have a chance to do: A really strong president with sway over the country and popular, and bipartisan partners. John McCain once upon a time was a bipartisan partner on immigration. He's not now. And on campaign finance reform, he still could be; and yet, there's no McCain-Obama talks, as far as I know, to say "let's try to move some legislation, to try to address this issue." I'd like to think that after the election, whether there’s scandals or not that it could be revisited legislatively. But it's difficult to do again, without a powerful president with partners on the other side."

This is rich. And, I might add, this Romney surrogate is un-fucking-believable. I have to admire his cunning, devious skill. Using his time with the quiescent Alex, Mark Halperin starts building a case for Romney, hitting on certain key Romney campaign "themes" as he put it, and against President Obama, with a subtle building block approach. We see Halperin suggest Romney would be "a really strong president" without any supporting evidence, except they're selling a tabularasa 'I'm rubber-you're glue' projection of 'weakness' on President Obama. Similarly, not that Romney 'the blank slate' has, yet somehow President Obama has no "sway" over the country, nor is he "popular" because, you see, he got "nothing" done, and his lead in the polls rarely cracked 50%.

One could variously call this Halperin trial baloon, or plant, the 'Jimmy Carter weak president argument.' It's a slight variation on the economic/jobs argument because Americans are beginning to perceive the economy as improving and as Bain Capital, Romney's fake 'job creator' private sector pretext, is about to blow up in his face. Again. And again.

Which brings us to John McCain. Said Halperin, not-so-disingenuously: "John McCain once upon a time was a bipartisan partner on immigration." Yes, and then he ran and lost, badly, against President Obama, faced a Teabagger primary challenge, and ran to the right, after the Republican Party, as fast as he could. Right to where Mitt Romney is holed up. So now, according to Mark Halperin's LIES (fantasies are only granted to those who believe them), President Obama is to blame for McCain's recalcitrance, even though he never stopped trying to reach out to his foe, and all we, the voters, have to do is reward the Republican Party for its documented obstructionism from day one, its Tea Party extremism, and its deliberate refusal to work with this president on legislation that previously had bipartisan support and Republican sponsorship, until Republicans decided on tanking the economy for partisan electoral gain, not to mention the Party's historic abuse of the filibuster.

That is a whole lotta gall on Mark Halperin's part.

Second, Halperin suggests that a President Romney, candidate of the plutocrats, the one percent, would suddenly, out of the goodness of his heart form partnerships with John McCain and Democrats to legislate away Citizens United, passing campaign finance reform to end the Republican Party's gargantuan money advantage which, coincidentally, was responsible for their total takeover of government, in one fell swoop. Yeah, right.

Third, the pig Halperin, no doubt emboldened by Alex's meekness, pushes the envelope to piously bemoan the hope for bipartisan cooperation: "I'd like to think that after the election, whether there’s scandals or not, that it could be revisited legislatively. But it's difficult to do again, without a powerful president with partners on the other side." Please consider the italicized text (mine) because it so clearly and succinctly points to Halperin's duplicity. Under the guise of making an innocent nonpartisan objective statement, this worm injects out of the blue the qualifying words "whether there's scandals or not." Now, what in the world is Halperin referring to?

Gee, the only thing that comes to mind is the partisan, manufactured Issa witch hunt against Attorney General Eric Holder. Hmm ... I think the pig's use of the plural is a Rovian technique to keep voters thinking there's more scandals where that came from, assuming that where there's smoke there's fire. (Sorry, folks, I tried really hard not to go the pig at the trough route, but I can't help it, the dude's a pig, and I've always believed in calling a spade a spade and a liar a liar.)

Finally, adopting the Rovian technique of planting the seeds of a lie as fact, and through repetition, Halperin once again (as we shall see from the previous segments) seeds the suggestion that campaign finance reform is "difficult to do again, without a powerful president with partners on the other side." Keep in mind, he isn't yet suggesting Romney is that "powerful president" for it would strain the voters' credulity. (The selling of the "powerful" Romney comes later.)

Rather, he is planting the seeds with a compliant Alex (to change the terms and parameters of the debate) with her (largely, I believe) livid audience (he only needs to convince a few), that President Obama is weak (as opposed to "powerful") and is responsible (rather than the Republican Party, which we are asked to reward for their treasonous obstructionism) for the absence of "partners on the other side." Again, we are asked to consider Romney as the "powerful" one because those pesky "scandals" would likely sap the President's 'power.'

The thing that infuriates about this kind of propaganda is that there is a simple and democratic solution. Armed with the truth, the people will have all the information they need to throw the Republican bums out and give President Obama a Democratic House and Senate with simple majorities (and reform of the filibuster in the next Congress) to move legislation. By suggesting President Obama is "weak" and ineffective Halperin implies Romney is the only alternative — by default.

Regarding the Super Pac money, Halperin is cheshire cat cocky in his conviction that a Republican House majority, and possibly the Senate too, can be bought. And perversely cocky that he can wander into the MSNBC lion's den and put one over on foolish liberals. Even floating with a straight face the ridiculous suggestion that Mitt Romney, or any Republican, would want anything to do with campaign finance reform. At this point John Heilemann decided he couldn't sit silent any longer in the face of Halperin's bullshit, and declared, "Will there be so much revulsion on the part of the public that people say to their congressmen, 'we demand action' — because if that’s not there it's never going to change."

Doubling back to the initial segment, on the Supreme Court Arizona 'papers please' ruling, Mark Halperin tipped his pro-Romney hand by attempting to minimize the importance of immigration policy in this election. A Democrat's automatic reply might well be, "you wish." According to Halperin, frantically trying to frame the issue in Romney's favor, the decision's political impact is "a wash" because (I love the way this dude weaves bullshit out of whole cloth) "the shelf-life on this is relatively short" [?] and given that the "immigration system is broken it’s one of the many issues where I don’t think we’ll get a real debate between these candidates." Excuse me!? Can anyone say 'non-sequitur'? Or, as Lawrence prefers, "gibberish?"

Once again, Halperin is trying to frame the immigration debate in Romney's favor with wishful thinking (believe me, there will be a vigorous immigration debate in this presidential election, and Mitt Romney will be skewered) because he knows full well every instance Romney is forced to speak to the topic he will lose Latino votes. Then he distracts Alex (pivots quickly) by mentioning his tweets (which, for some reason got her all excited), speaking of the "clever things," the "rhetoric" and "themes" Mitt Romney "wants to go to whenever he can" because the provision that was upheld "is a huge hot-button issue in the Hispanic community." This was an important point for Halperin to stress because he repeated the word "rhetoric" three times over Alex's excited verbal tweets. Why? According to oft-cited Rovian propaganda technique, face your perceived weakness (in this instance, lack of specificity, broad "themes") head-on, then pivot to the attack.

Which is exactly what Halperin did. In a weird repetitive mantra, which was totally deliberate and another Rovian propaganda technique, Halperin pivoted to Romney's critique of the President, saying "Obama is weak, Obama is partisan, Obama breaks his promises, Obama doesn't respect states' rights." What is this, some kind of rap!? A poetry slam!? "Journalists" don't speak like this. They'll mention the name once, then add the adjectives accordingly. The technique of name repetition in propaganda is to associate the name with the negative connotation in the voters' mind. Secondly, it should be noted that these adjectives are canards, lies. And they went unchallenged.

Halperin stated the obvious, "engaging in specifics doesn't help (Romney) and I think he's going to try to get away with this." John Heilemann, to his credit, pushed back hard: "No, Romney can't dance around this. ... I take a dimmer view of whether the politics of this are a wash for Romney, if that's his paramount problem with the Hispanic community. Nothing he said today or nothing that I could think of that he could say addressing the specific issues here, which is what the Hispanic community wants to hear from him, is going to help him solve that problem. And so to me, every time immigration is in the news, every time he's forced to say things that are primarily defensive, and not things that are about solving the problem, helping his vote show with Hispanic voters is a bad day for Mitt Romney."

Kudos to John Heilemann for this takedown, mortal lock slam of his pal Mark Halperin. (Is that Game Change sequel still in the works?)

But the wily Halperin wasn't done yet. In the next segment he took a different tack to rehabilitate his candidate remarking, with Alex's vigorous gone-off-the-rails assent, that "business" is another "constituency" in the Republican Party that wants "strong immigration reform" — an overstatement, at best. What "business" wants is cheap labor. Period. Here it comes:

"You need a strong president who has the trust of the other party to get immigration reform at any time, particularly now, because things are so polarized, and again, what both candidates have to do not just on immigration but on a range of issues, but immigration, one of the toughest, along with tax reform is to convince the country: 'I can get elected, regardless of the makeup of Congress; when I get elected I can do this' — that is where Gov. Romney I think has at least a small advantage because the President had four years and hasn’t been able to do it.There’s reason to be skeptical that Gov. Romney could do it and he hasn’t put forward a specific set of ideas as the President, but he does not have the record the President does of not getting it done."

Okay, let's unpack and deconstruct this pro-Romney gib-prop (gibberish propaganda), shall we. There's that Romney 'the blank slate' pattern rearing its head, again. "You need a strong president who has the trust of the other party to
get immigration reform at any time, particularly now, because things
are so polarized." Naturally, the Halperin inference is that President Obama (not "strong") lacks "the trust of the other party." Again, he is asking us to reward Republican partisan obstructionism and has the audacity to lay the blame at the President's feet. Secondly, he makes the Romney electability argument on pure faith. (Remember the previous suggestion that Romney intends to skate toward the election absent specifics?) Finally, Halperin tips his partisan hand and LIES outrageously: Romney has a "small advantage because the President had four years and he hasn't been able to do it."

Excuse me, but the President has only been in office less than three and one-half years. Furthermore, his legislative and foreign policy record is strong, despite total, partisan Republican non-cooperation. And to suggest he hasn't "been able to do it" regarding the Dream Act is false and misleading because it passed both the House and Senate, failing only to override a Republican filibuster, Romney promised to veto it, and President Obama accomplished the same objective administratively by changing Homeland Security immigration policy. So there's two LIES. Here's the third: Romney "hasn’t put forward a specific set of ideas as the President, but he
does not have the record the President does of not getting it done."

Can anyone say Romney-Halperin gibberish? Mitt Romney has no immigration "record" period. He does, however, have a "record" of anti-immigrant statements and half-baked policies: "Self-deportation," a promise to veto the Dream Act, the recently gutted AZ law which Romney praised as a "model" for the rest of the country. Nice try, Halperin. Now go get your check from the Romney campaign.

And before I forget, here's Lady Alex's reply to Halperin's gib-prop, above. "Indeed." INDEED!? WTF is wrong with you Alex!? SERIOUSLY.

IN WHICH OUR INTREPID HEROINE sets off on another excellent adventure to her Washington, D.C. hometown. But much has changed since the Bush years ... And Lady Alex narrowly escaped a BELTWAY MIND MELT of the kind which has afflicted some of her colleagues, turning them into BELTWAY PODBOTS. Thanks largely to the deft sparring intervention of 'GUARDIANS' Richard Wolf, Jonathan Chait, Sam Stein, and Rolling Stone's Eric Bates (that Lady Alex, fighting off wingnut demons, had called Eric Holder), NOW's irreversible slide to right wing contamination was stopped before Alex and crew fell into the dark abyss populated by ... the usual suspects.

To make matters worse, Chris Matthews was abruptly called away on a mysterious mission to Mt. Rushmore, and could not help Lady Alex negotiate the right wing D.C. elites minefield.